


Legacy Systems

by luckybarton



Category: Lock In - John Scalzi
Genre: Chat Logs, Epistolary, Gen, In-Universe Meta, The Agora (Lock In)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-10-20 15:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17624642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckybarton/pseuds/luckybarton
Summary: In the early days, the Agora wasn't much like we know it. Sometimes, it still isn't.





	1. agora_log.txt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HopefulNebula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulNebula/gifts).



> This fic uses a work skin that affects font (sets it to monospace) and line spacing. It looks best with it on but is also completely legible with the skin disabled.
> 
> I'm not totally sure that this fits with Scalzi's timeline, so let's pretend that it does.
> 
> People's death is mentioned, so I've tagged MCD, but it isn't described in detail and only comes up in the final chapter.

Welcome to the Agora, v2.3.1. Enter **changelog** to see changes made in the last few updates or **list** to list available rooms. You can also **join** a room you already know the name of with **join room-name** , and **leave** the room after you’re already there. Type **help** for more commands!

 

> changelog

Showing changes for version 2.3.1.

 

 **Major changes (2)** :

  * Users can now specify status messages using the **status** command.
  * Multilingual support has now been added. This means that rooms should no longer auto-boot you for entering text in a language the room isn’t set to.
  * General efficiency upgrades mean that everything should go a little bit faster.



 

**Minor changes (2.1, 2.2, 2.3):**

  * The room quota per user has expanded: each user can now create three rooms.
  * Room owners can now grant other users moderation permissions.
  * Room owners can now grant other users object creation rights within their rooms. The maximum objects per user per room is 5. The maximum number of objects a room can contain is still 20.
  * We now support **bold** and _italics._



 

**Patch changes (2.3.1):**

  * Some neural nets support display of text in languages not spoken by their user, but use a partially-biological processing solution in their text-to-speech implementation, resulting in garbled output. The Agora software now autodetects these systems and uses its own implementation + the speech protocol.



 

> join dev_bar

 

 _You have entered_ **_dev_bar,_** _a dimly lit enterprise that has a server rack for a wine rack and a wine rack full of servers. It’s best not to ask._

 

 **_you_ ** _have entered the room!_

 **_cccadell_ ** _has entered the room!_

 

Thomer: we really need to change that welcome message to something more thematic

 

cccadell: agree

lorad0ra: it’s too cheery

 

cccadell: not enough seething hatred

 

lorad0ra: so what brings you here this fine evening?

 

cccadell: actually it’s still afternoon where I am

cccadell: room is stupid warm

cccadell: i want to, like... get someone to get me an iot thermostat, and hook into it from my net or some shit

 

Thomer: i mean, it’s not a bad idea. it’s a _terrible_ idea.

 

cccadell: I’M HERE TO KEEP ME COLD

 

Thomer: do you know how bad the sec on iot shit is

Thomer: and you wanna connect that shit to your BRAINCELLS?

 

lorad0ra: the security on neural nets is pretty fuckn intense

 

Thomer: sure but 3c over here is talking about bypassing it

 

cccadell: what exactly do you think the agora does

Thomer: the agora is not arbitrary machinery

Thomer: you can’t just connect your brain to arbitrary machinery

Thomer: speakers sure but like not this diy bullshit

 

cccadell: fine

 

cccadell: take it as a hypothetical

cccadell: let’s say you wanted to connect your neural net to something random

cccadell: what would you do

 

Thomer: if i was a genius?

Thomer: right now only the protocol you use to communicate with the agora servers & voice equip. is standardised. but once you receive messages from those protocols they basically just go thru some security then direct to bare metal then to your bare brain

 

cccadell: you’ve got a bare brain

 

Thomer: you’ve got the stupid questions

 

Thomer: anyway you would want another layer of separation between the software and the hardware. either within the neural net or in a proxy

Thomer: and since nobody’s writing that except a FUCKING GENIUS

Thomer: which you are not

 

Thomer: we’re stuck with this thin-client bullshit, forever.

 

cccadell: thanks for the tips!

 

 **_cccadell_ ** _has left the room. Aw._

 

Thomer: idiot

 


	2. FWD: Raytheon Neural Net Driver Upgrades

**IMPORTANT: DRIVER UPDATES FOR ALL RAYTHEON NEURAL NETS**

from: support@raytheon.com

to: g.cadell@mail.ago.ra

 

 

Dear Mx. Cadell,

 

 

Raytheon is proud to announce that driver upgrades for all Raytheon neural net models will become available on March 1st. These upgrades are not mandatory but are strongly recommended, as they greatly enhance the capabilities of even early-stage neural networks.

 

Benefits include high-resolution image and video display, more realistic tactile sensation, and support for internet video streaming protocols.

 

The upgrades will take up to three hours, wherein the neural net will not be available for use. Therefore, it is recommended that users choose to upgrade when they do not have other obligations, or while they are asleep.

 

For more information, please visit our website and enter the model number of your neural net, or join the room **raytheon_help** in the Agora.

 

 

Yours truly,

 

Mira Shannon

Raytheon Technical Lead

  
**_Raytheon._** _The Neural Frontier._


	3. bluffing_motherfuckers.txt

**Why doesn’t the Agora support video yet? Your questions, answered.**

 

In the last year, all major manufacturers of neural nets released upgrades to allow support for high-definition display of mono- and stereoscopic images and video, along with an RFC (ref. no 10680) for a protocol that would allow services—like the Agora—to implement features like streaming video. In the most recent major update **(release 4.0.3)** we added multi-user voice channels to the list of features that the Agora supports, building on **version 3’s** two-way voice calls. The implementation of the video streaming protocol is not dissimilar to that of audio—in fact, it’s built on top of it. This has led many Agora users to wonder: why wasn’t video chat support added simultaneously?

 

There are several major hurdles. One is connection speed and available bandwidth. While major advancements are being made in high-speed data transmission, we aren’t yet at a point where we can _guarantee_ near-zero latency. The current implementation of high-resolution image display in most neural nets is full-field-of-view. This makes any interruptions far more disorienting than they would be if they were displayed on a virtual “screen” (as some neural nets do). Another is that visualization-to-image conversion isn’t nearly where it would need to be for image transmission between Hadens to be useful at all. Some have suggested the creation of a visual virtual world—but the current state of the way outside sources are allowed to connect to neural nets  would mean that the sound and video would need to be live-rendered on the Agora servers for each individual user’s perspective. While we _do_ have access to NIH funding, it isn’t nearly enough to support that kind of processing.

 

Does this mean that the Agora will never support video? No. However, until these concerns are addressed, it is unlikely to be implemented.

 

_From blog.ago.ra. Published October 15. Accessed by Thomas Homer on October 17._


	4. agora_logs_cccadell_32.txt

_ Started private messaging session with  _ **_cccadell._ **

 

Thomer: yo ccc

Thomer: remember back in like january when i called you an idiot in dev_bar

 

cccadell: no not really

 

Thomer: must have been after u left

cccadell: ... 

 

Thomer: anyway i was thinking and i don’t think you were being stupid

cccadell: what was I being stupid about again

Thomer: yr thermostat

cccadell: oh yeah i fixed that thing

 

Thomer: you what

 

cccadell: got an old work friend over. she set up a private server with a forked version of the agora server. the server connects to a thermostat. i send it text commands.

cccadell: over time i’ve extended it to do a few other things

cccadell: by the power of shell access

 

Thomer: dude

Thomer: write that shit up

 

cccadell: it requires a lot of tech knowhow and someone who can move their arms

 

Thomer: so

 

cccadell: nobody will use it

 

Thomer: at least give me read access to the repo

cccadell: sure, later.

cccadell: was that what you wanted to hear about? lol

 

Thomer: i mean

Thomer: yes-and-no

 

Thomer: did u read that post on the agora blog... the one about video

 

cccadell: yeah 

cccadell: ik a lot of people are mad but it makes sense. i wouldn’t want to write what people are asking the agora devs to do

 

Thomer: i mean i’m not mad either

Thomer: at least, i’m not mad at the agora devs

Thomer: but it all seemed a bit weird so I went and actually read the documentation for the protocols. the RFCs and shit

 

Thomer: it’s garbage inextensible BULLSHIT

Thomer: we’ve had messaging, streaming, audio, etc for years

Thomer: but somehow we need an  **_entirely new protocol_ ** every time the net manufacturers decide they’ve got a new feature

 

Thomer: the designs are also really bad for backwards compatibility and honestly that scares me

 

cccadell: i mean you’re not wrong but what do you want to do about it

cccadell: this is just a side effect of the massive rush to Do Something about Hadens

cccadell: while keeping things standardised and coordinated in a way that is  _ really unusual _ for both medical and just normal development companies.

 

cccadell: even if either of us could work, we don’t work for them.

 

Thomer: the protocols are managed by an open standards body. we could make our own submission

 

cccadell: they won’t accept it. 

Thomer: how do you know?

 

cccadell: we’re randos

cccadell: i don’t even know chomsky

 

Thomer: cccadell nobody knows chomsky right now

Thomer: nobody USES it.

Thomer: it needs specialist architecture to run it. Nobody right now has an implant capable of running Chomsky

 

Thomer: when it’s out, it will change everything

Thomer: but for now we have to work with what we have

 

cccadell: all the really interesting new shit is in chomsky

cccadell: nobody wants to hear about this

 

Thomer: i’ll hit you up again when i’ve got my own box set up

Thomer: think about it k?

 

cccadell: kk


	5. agora 6.5.4, LTS

> join dev_bar

 

_ You have entered  _ **_dev_bar._ ** _ The server rack has been emptied of wine and the wine rack is full of messed-up spaghetti. _

 

**_you_ ** _ have entered the room! _

 

Thomer: ...does that reference what I think it does

 

l0rad0ra: does what

Thomer: the intro message to dev_bar

 

l0rad0ra: chompsky fuckereth over us all

 

Thomer: 1) fuckereth?

 

Thomer: 2) science marches on. The next generation of Hadens will have better than us 

 

l0rad0ra: let me guess. you read the spec and went straight into nerd worship

 

Thomer: no

  
  


 

**_cccadell_ ** _ has entered the room! _

Thomer: i mean maybe sorta

cccadell: THOMER EXACTLY WHO I NEED

 

l0rad0ra: great. take him.


	6. opinion.ago.ra/cassbell

 

History books—recollections of the origin of Haden’s as a mode of existence and Hadens as a community—cover remarkably little about the work of early Hadens. Perhaps this is because few of them are written by Hadens themselves, but I, too, have been guilty of this omittance. Only a few lines in my own are given to the ‘old Agora’, a legacy system used by a tiny percentage of Hadens, patched but not properly updated for just over twenty years. The ‘old Agora’—or the Agora, as it was known—was built for an older style of neural network, with much more limited capabilities.

 

When these systems stopped being implanted in new patients, the assumption made by neural network manufacturers was that people who used these ‘old style’ networks would stay in the ‘old Agora’. No efforts were made to bring them to what we would now recognise as just ‘the Agora’. As earlier Hadens had—and still have—worse mortality rates than newer patients, it wasn’t seen as a worthy investment to come up with a workaround. And yet, they found those people there anyway.

 

I’m going to tell you two names you’ve never heard before: Grey Cadell and Thomas Homer. They laid the open-source groundwork for what would be marketed as Interface A by Westech and Rayconnect by what was then Raytheon—along with various other manufacturers, whose attempts to get in on an unexpected cash-grab were less covered by the media. Westech and Raytheon were lauded as heroes for scarcely building upon Cadell and Homer’s work: a project still available for viewing online called ‘the 3c proxy box for sad spaghett’. It was more widely known as ‘ProxBox’, and it acted as an intermediary between low-capability neural networks and systems designed for Chomsky architecture.

 

The image you would get from ProxBox when connecting to the Agora was not lifelike, and sensation transmission beyond visual and audible depended largely on what your network was capable of reproducing with fidelity. Its interpretation of the data it recieved was sometimes faulty, and the quality you’d get was also highly dependent on the processing power of the computer you ran it on. High resolution was preferable, but high speed was imperative. The experience wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t nothing.

 

To gain access to the Agora, ProxBox had to represent itself as a newer model of an established neural network manufacturer. Technically, all the Agora was supposed to do was make queries to the neural network about its capabilities and grant or deny access from there, but Cadell had suspicions that the appearance of a completely unknown model ID would flag suspicion after a while. They were right, but not in the way that they expected. A small set of models of a specific type and version behaving oddly led to a report to the supposed manufacturer, who led their own enquiry. What they found wasn’t a collection of glitched neural networks, but a group of Hadens who’d built their own access using the name of their system as a disguise.

 

I’m not the first person to tell this story, but now is the time that it needs to be heard. Grey Cadell died last week, of Haden’s-related complications. Thomas Homer passed away last April, of the same. In three days, NIH funding disappears completely.

 

If they are to be remembered, then it should be in our actions. In Hadens standing for Hadens, against institutional apathy.

 

 

In memoriam of Grey Cadell and Thomas Homer.

 

 

**Cassandra Bell**


End file.
